Binod Bihari Chowdhury, the last surviving revolutionary of 1930's Chittagong Armoury Raid © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

“We knew we were all going to die,” he says, casually.

I have heard this line many times in films, read it in books, but to hear it face to face, from a man who knew he was going to die, is something else. This is not a line we, born in free countries, quite appreciate when it is played out in the movies. To feel the real meaning of the words, make a trip to Momin Road in Chittagong, and find Binod Bihari Chowdhury, who lives in one of the bylanes in a small non-descript house. He had a bullet pierce his neck, but he has survived to tell the not-often-told tale of the Chittagong Armoury Raid in 1930.

Binod is 101 now, the last revolutionary alive among that group, mainly comprising students, who fought a battle that they knew would eventually claim their lives. He is as frail as can be imagined. Recently he has been to Kolkata for treatment. He struggles with high blood pressure, but still watches cricket, much to the chagrin of those who look after him. He struggles to talk, but likes to tell stories. Dadu we call him. Like a dadu, a grandfather, he has us sit around him and tells us of the people who fought for independence. He doesn’t blink at all when he is talking. There are four of us there, and he looks into the eye of each, one by one, alternating, as he admits his memory plays tricks at times.

Once upon a time Binod was a student too. A student who, when moving to an English-medium school from the Bangla school, had to be demoted two standards to fit into the English school. “I didn’t understand all that then, I did what my father asked me to,” he says. From the age of 16, Binod’s life has been one full of revolution, the fight against injustice, prison, hibernation, having a prize on his head – 500 rupees – but the most inspirational part of it has been the Armoury Raid, led by the legendary Masterda Surjya Sen.

The first thing he talks about when he realises we are from India is about the recent Bollywood film on the Chittagong Uprising, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se. “Why do they keep calling him Surjyo da, Surjyo da in the film? Don’t they know nobody ever called him Surjyo da? He was always Master da.” Just confirms how callous popular culture can be. How do you make a whole feature film on the revolution without consulting the only revolutionary alive?

At the age of 16, Binod joined Jugantor, the revolutionary organisation. A measure of how committed they were to the cause was how nobody got to know what he was up to. Not his father, not his mother, not his brother, not his sister, not the best of his friends. Such organisations had to be secret in those days, else they wouldn’t survive. “One day I was chatting with Master da,” Binod says. “And one of the revolutionaries saw us, and asked Master da, ‘Why do you let him sit next to you? I have asked him to join us many times, but he keeps abusing you.’ That’s when Master da laughed and told him, ‘He has been a member even before you.’ That’s how well we guarded our organisation. I still have secrets I have never told anybody, ever.”

After meticulous planning, they put up their fight against imperialism, after which, albeit for a short duration, Indian Republican Army, Chittagong Branch, as they called themselves, tasted freedom. They took Auxiliary Forces armoury, and cut telephone and telegraph wires. Master da took a military salute, and the National Flag was hoisted.

“We knew if we claim their armouries in Chattagram [Chittagong], the Britishers wouldn’t be able to do much. But we also knew we would be able to rule for only two-three-four days. We would soon be outnumbered… We knew we were all going to die.”

We spent more than an hour with Binod, during which he told us about his and his friends’ ordeals when the stronger British forces finally caught up, about his time in prison, about how the independence they fought for didn’t turn out to be the independence they wanted, his role in the planning for the Liberation War of 1971. For about 10 minutes after we came out, nobody spoke a word. Films and books can never do that to you.

The fans have apologised, but it can't make up for what was a security breach © Getty Images

As promised last night, hundreds of Bangladeshis gathered outside the team hotel in Dhaka on Saturday to apologise to the cricketers for the actions of some “fans” – for want of a better word. Stones were thrown at the team buses last night, there were reports of rioting in the Dhaka University area and of an attack on the house of Shakib Al Hasan’s parents.

This morning the other side of the Bangladesh cricket fan emerged, a side I still believe to be more representative of the average fan. I was not there to see it – I had an early-morning bus to Chittagong – but the reports are reassuring. People arrived there early in the morning with flowers, with placards apologising not only to the West Indies cricketers but the Bangladeshis too.

I never doubted this side of the Bangladeshis. Often at the end of rickshaw rides or CNG [auto-rickshaw] rides in Dhaka, I have seen people try to overhear how much money I, their “guest”, am paying, to make sure I am not being ripped off. I can only imagine they have been just as hospitable to other travellers.

However, no amount of good behaviour, no amount of apologising can make up for what happened last night. For the most important issue right now is not the image of the Bangladeshi fan. It’s that there was a security breach last night and no authority right now is ready to acknowledge it. It’s that last night Chris Gayle felt unsafe in the country. That he wondered how, if those responsible for security couldn’t keep stones away, they would keep bullets away. When your house is robbed, you don’t debate the robbers’ moral make-up, you think of how you could have protected your house better.

The incident has evoked reactions from the three main parties: the police, BCB and ICC. All three reactions have been shoddy. The police, for some reason, thought that they needed to stress that the people were attacking their own countrymen, not the visitors, and that it was a case of mistaken identity. Not only is that version not accurate – ESPNcricinfo learned later in the night that both buses were hit and there wasn’t much to tell one bus from the other – but it beggared belief how attacking Bangladesh players can be seen as a smaller security failure than attacking the West Indians.

Mustafa Kamal, the BCB president, issued an apology but did not concede to the incident being a security failure. His version was that the stones came from “far away from the main road”. How reassuring to the players who genuinely felt they were in danger. How reassuring that only troublemakers on the main road can be taken care of, not those immediately beyond.

Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive, seems to have gone a step further. “It was a few individuals who threw pebbles at the bus, and they were pebbles,” he said. Pebbles don’t crack bulletproof glasses – something the West Indies media manager confirmed to ESPNcricinfo - do they?

It is understandable that the establishment doesn’t want to create panic, and wants to play down the whole thing. It is also hoped that their actual reaction to all this will be different from the statements they are making in public. For the moment, how about not making it sound like nothing happened?

The nine jerseys of 1992 © Getty Images

We all have our favourite sport jerseys. New Zealand’s 1992 World Cup one is mine. In 2009, I spent two months in that country and desperately looked for it in almost every store that sold cricket jerseys. In vain. I did get two really good ones – the beige, and the one they won the Champions trophy in. Two years later, in Bangladesh, I hear of the man who made a killing out of selling those shirts in 1992. The said man is now Bangladesh’s bowling coach, Ian Pont.

It has been three interesting days of meeting cricketers with interesting job descriptions, thanks to Ireland being in town, but I was delighted to meet the sales and marketing director of the company that revolutionised cricket merchandising. I hoped this was a tree that that would drop a couple of New Zealand shirts if I as much as threw a stone.

Actually there was nothing revolutionary about it, but during the first World Cup played in colour clothing, Pont’s men were the only ones who thought of selling replica shirts to the fans. And they sold 120,000 in one year.

“After that in 1993, we also did the English domestic season for two years,” Pont says. “Everyone then realised that there was money to be made from selling shirts. It was a new market. I know some administrators thought we were crazy. What they didn’t understand was that fans wanted to wear the cricket shirts, with the names of the countries.”

Pont’s company mainly worked in England, and the presence of Pakistanis there and their team’s success meant those green ones were the hottest properties back then. And not many disagree that the 1992 World Cup had the best format and the best jerseys of all time. Of all time.

“They were not difficult designs,” Pont says. “They were very simple. There was a strip going across, like the rainbow. Each stripe was a colour of the team. Since then, teams design their own shirts. The ’92 ones were iconic. If you see Imran Khan lift the World Cup trophy in that shirt, it’s quite iconic. I am quite happy to be involved with that clothing.”

Pont, though, is a man for vivid colours. He thinks the Zimbabwe shirt in the 1992 World Cup was the best ever. “I quite liked it. When you see that red under lights, it really jumps. The Dutch shirts, the orange, they are really vivid now. I actually think that the Bangladesh shirt is really good. Our playing shirt I really like. I like the Pakistan shirt. English shirt I don’t like much. Very ordinary. India shirt not so keen on. Lots of teams playing in green. Australia have a bit of green, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ireland, South Africa.”

More than the design, though, it is the new super-scientific, shiny fabric that I don’t like about the modern jerseys. I feel reassured that a man from the very industry agrees. “I am not a big fan of the material being used at the moment,” Pont says. “Back in 1992, we worked with a company called ICI. They had a fabric that was poly-cotton mixed, which took the moisture of your body off. Every company does that now, but they use super polyester. And I don’t like super polyester myself. I like the nice poly-cotton mix, which you can print on the outside, and against your skin it’s cotton, and feels soft.”

I am wearing a Ghana football shirt when I am talking to Pont. I bought it off the street in Cape Town for just 15 rand. That, Pont says, has killed the merchandising business. You can’t control these imitations. My counter-point is, you can’t have us pay hundreds of dollars for shirts. Which brings me back to the main point. I quietly slip in the question; if he still has a few of those shirts. He says he has one full set of all nine at home. That, however, is the only set he has. And that will cost a lot if I did wish to buy it. I still don’t have the New Zealand 1992 World Cup shirt. Money, so they say…

The nine jerseys of 1992 © Getty Images

We all have our favourite sport jerseys. New Zealand’s 1992 World Cup one is mine. In 2009, I spent two months in that country and desperately looked for it in almost every store that sold cricket jerseys. In vain. I did get two really good ones – the beige, and the one they won the Champions trophy in. Two years later, in Bangladesh, I hear of the man who made a killing out of selling those shirts in 1992. The said man is now Bangladesh’s bowling coach, Ian Pont.

It has been three interesting days of meeting cricketers with interesting job descriptions, thanks to Ireland being in town, but I was delighted to meet the sales and marketing director of the company that revolutionised cricket merchandising. I hoped this was a tree that that would drop a couple of New Zealand shirts if I as much as threw a stone.

Actually there was nothing revolutionary about it, but during the first World Cup played in colour clothing, Pont’s men were the only ones who thought of selling replica shirts to the fans. And they sold 120,000 in one year.

“After that in 1993, we also did the English domestic season for two years,” Pont says. “Everyone then realised that there was money to be made from selling shirts. It was a new market. I know some administrators thought we were crazy. What they didn’t understand was that fans wanted to wear the cricket shirts, with the names of the countries.”

Pont’s company mainly worked in England, and the presence of Pakistanis there and their team’s success meant those green ones were the hottest properties back then. And not many disagree that the 1992 World Cup had the best format and the best jerseys of all time. Of all time.

“They were not difficult designs,” Pont says. “They were very simple. There was a strip going across, like the rainbow. Each stripe was a colour of the team. Since then, teams design their own shirts. The ’92 ones were iconic. If you see Imran Khan lift the World Cup trophy in that shirt, it’s quite iconic. I am quite happy to be involved with that clothing.”

Pont, though, is a man for vivid colours. He thinks the Zimbabwe shirt in the 1992 World Cup was the best ever. “I quite liked it. When you see that red under lights, it really jumps. The Dutch shirts, the orange, they are really vivid now. I actually think that the Bangladesh shirt is really good. Our playing shirt I really like. I like the Pakistan shirt. English shirt I don’t like much. Very ordinary. India shirt not so keen on. Lots of teams playing in green. Australia have a bit of green, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ireland, South Africa.”

More than the design, though, it is the new super-scientific, shiny fabric that I don’t like about the modern jerseys. I feel reassured that a man from the very industry agrees. “I am not a big fan of the material being used at the moment,” Pont says. “Back in 1992, we worked with a company called ICI. They had a fabric that was poly-cotton mixed, which took the moisture of your body off. Every company does that now, but they use super polyester. And I don’t like super polyester myself. I like the nice poly-cotton mix, which you can print on the outside, and against your skin it’s cotton, and feels soft.”

I am wearing a Ghana football shirt when I am talking to Pont. I bought it off the street in Cape Town for just 15 rand. That, Pont says, has killed the merchandising business. You can’t control these imitations. My counter-point is, you can’t have us pay hundreds of dollars for shirts. Which brings me back to the main point. I quietly slip in the question; if he still has a few of those shirts. He says he has one full set of all nine at home. That, however, is the only set he has. And that will cost a lot if I did wish to buy it. I still don’t have the New Zealand 1992 World Cup shirt. Money, so they say…

Ireland are serious about their rugby © Cricket Ireland

Alan Lewis, former Ireland cricketer and now a Rugby Union referee, was at the Ireland training session before their game against Australia in Dublin last year. He wasn’t there to impart tips or share experiences with his younger countrymen, No sir, there was more serious business at hand. Two groups of quarrelling, argumentative Irish national cricketers didn’t trust their support staff to do a good job officiating, so they got Lewis to stand in a game. A game of rugby. That’s how serious and competitive these games before nets sessions and before matches are.

Of course they play the milder version, touch rugby (they wouldn’t want to get injured through proper tackles), but the games are every bit as competitive as their cricket in international matches is. “If you lose, the boys will take it out on you for the rest of the day, or the next couple of days,” says Niall O’Brien. “If you win, which we are doing at the moment in the Green team, I am letting the Blue team know, and giving them plenty of stick.”

O’Brien should know, for he was on the losing side in the 2007 World Cup. Back then the teams were not unimaginatively named Green and Blue. The divide ran deeper. The Oldies played the Youngies, and O’Brien’s Youngies lost. Trent Johnston, Boyd Rankin’s new-ball partner, would never let him hear the last of it. Rankin, though, played rugby at school, and although he didn’t get a chance to exact revenge on this trip because of the new teams, he is at least on the winning Green side on this tour.

William Porterfield, one of the best players in the side, is not too impressed with Rankin’s claims, though. He tells the team stories of how Rankin used to trample all over his feet and his size-15 shoes. O’Brien thinks along the same lines. “I am not sure how good a player he was,” he says. “I think he was pretty useful in the line-out. I think he was handy enough there, Boydy, but I think he has chosen the right career path in being a quick bowler.”

Back to winning or losing then. It’s not an easy job to determine. Every city they travel to forms one leg of their rugby tour. For example, this is the third leg of the World Cup tour, after the Dubai leg and the Nagpur leg. There will be Bangalore leg after this, and so on. And there is no fixed number of legs, it all depends on how far they reach in the tournament.

As of now, both the teams have won one leg each, with Green leading two games to nought in Dhaka. They expect to take the lead here. On paper, Blue seem to be a stronger side, with Jonhston, Porterfield and Ed Joyce in. However, they also have the services of Andrew White, not something Rankin and O’Brien are particularly envious of.

“Definitely the worst player,” says O’Brien, “is Andrew White. Comfortably. He coaches rugby, he has played rugby, but he just goes for the glory, tries the interceptions, and opens up the defence. He is the worst.” Ireland famously were a motley crew of a painter, truck driver, postman, farmer, electrician and more such work descriptions, in the last World Cup. Now, though, White is one of the only two players to have not turned pro. He is a schoolteacher, and says that job too was important to him.

Ask Rankin about White, and he says, “Andrew White is on the other side, he is not very good.” Sounds like a popular player in the side.

They are not playing not for nothing. At the end of every tour, there is a formal presentation, and they have a trophy to go with it too, a tradition that started in the Caribbean. It was called Snip Du Jour in 2007, a name Paul Mooney came up with. Mooney is not playing this World Cup, but in his memory, this year's trophy is called Snip Mooney.

The next time Ireland are in your city, make it to the game earlier than you normally do. For this naturally entertaining side gets down to business before they actually start playing cricket.

There was an eerie silence on Dhaka streets on Sunday, but the fans were back on Monday evening © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

This Sunday in Dhaka had a terrible hungover feel. It had been a week full of partying out in the streets, and then suddenly the home team ran into Virender Sehwag. Reality check. Suddenly the World Cup came crashing down. For the first time since landing here on Tuesday, I saw empty streets Saturday night. Such quiet so soon after such noise can be unsettling. The next morning was to be worse.

Not only for Bangladesh, but the whole World Cup. The roads remained as quiet as is possible in Dhaka. No flags on the streets, no vuvuzelas, no horns, no people on rooftops. The worst realisation dawned when you switched the TV on, and saw Kenya and Canada play, you realised there was a whole month of meaningless matches before you could get into the World Cup proper. It is in fact a tribute to the Dhaka people that they created that World Cup atmosphere, and so well that even the most cynical of analysts forgot what an ordeal awaits them in the league stages.

It was through peaceful roads on Monday morning that we made our way to the Bangladesh nets session. They looked jovial, they seemed to have moved on from the defeat in the opener. Bowlers fought with batsmen over whether the shot would have been caught by the imaginary field he had set, or whether it would have gone into the gap. However, thousands of people didn’t wait outside, like they had been doing the previous week, to catch a glimpse of their heroes when they would leave.

I asked Tamim if that adds to their disappointment of losing; that people who had created such great atmosphere for the World Cup are sitting quietly at homes, on a holiday, the International Mother Language Day, which marks the start of the Bangla language movement in East Pakistan on February 21, 1952. Tamim said, “We players need a rest after every match. Same way, the crowd needs some rest. I am sure they all will be back before the match, and they will be on song.”

As I crossed the Shere Bangla National Stadium in the evening, lo, there were thousands outside the ground again. Horns, flags, vuvuzelas were back. It was back to being a mela [carnival] again. It will take more than just one defeat to keep the Dhaka people indoors.

The Bangabandhu Stadium looks ready to host the World Cup opening ceremony © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Bangabandhu Stadium was once the soul of Bangladesh cricket, and sport in general. By extension, the soul of the nation itself. It gave not only Bangladesh, but also Pakistan, their Test debuts, in 1955 and in 2000. It staged successfully the Champions Trophy in 1998-99. Being situated in the Gulistan area, it is in the heart of Dhaka, easy for people to access, for them to make cricket part of their lives. Right next to it is the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque.

Old-timers talk wistfully of the days when the stadium was the home of Bangladesh cricket. When college kids could bunk classes and catch domestic cricket, when office-goers could watch evening sessions, when life merged with cricket and cricket merged with life. Most missed is the adda (when Bengali people either side of the border sit and chat, they like to call the arrangement an adda) outside the stadium around the various small restaurants that served cheap food. Tea, food, smoke, sport, and endless debates and discussions on sport. Meerpoor keno jabo amra was the common cry when it was announced that the Shere Bangla National Stadium would be the new home of Bangladesh cricket. Why must we go to Mirpur?

Ambitious and modern, Shere Bangla is an impressive ground. Drainage, seating, dressing rooms are top class, and the practice facilities are perhaps the best in the subcontinent. Four teams can train there simultaneously without bumping into each other. The crowd is cared for better too. Long will the tradition-v-modernity debate carry on at the addas in the rest of Dhaka, but fact remains that the locals miss their old iconic ground, their original adda. Gone with cricket are the restaurants, and the Outer Stadium. They have been replaced by other sports association offices. One of them is delightfully named “Mohammad Ali Boxing Stadium”.

On Wednesday, though, there was cricketing life at the Bangabandhu Stadium. Not sure how the old-timers would compare it to their days of enjoying cricket here, but the sheer number of people waiting at the gates to get a chance to see the rehearsal of the opening ceremony of the World Cup was overwhelming. Yes, just the rehearsal.

Only those with tickets could get in, though, and the tickets were distributed only among the various administrative and security staffs of the country. The idea was for them to enjoy the event today, so that they can get back to their job of making the real thing possible on Thursday. Just watching the number of people outside the stadium when there was no promise of any action suggested it was a good move to hold the opening ceremony at this historic venue. As we tried to make our way in, one man came to distribute copies of the schedule of the World Cup, and it caused a near-stampede there. Everybody wanted one. Who knows if there were restaurants there, they could have sat down, ordered tea and lit cigarettes, and would have started discussing the schedule.

Inside, the stadium looks ready for the occasion. Swanky new hospitality suites have been brought up. About 25,000 seats have been added to the stands. Giant screens have come up, floodlights have been renovated. The facelift has cost about 350 million takas (approx. US$ 5 million). The tall Industrial Bank Building at one end and the mosque at the other bring back memories of cricket at Bangabandhu. Almost a full house for the rehearsal is a testament to the interest that cricket, Bangabandhu and the World Cup (all combined in this case) generate in this country.

For the ceremony itself, a circular stage has been erected in the middle of the ground. The turf and the athletics tracks have been covered in cloth black and white. Cricket and inauguration ceremonies generally haven’t been good bedfellows. Who can forget the epic fail that the laser show in 1996 was, or Saeed Jaffrey, otherwise a good actor and the host of the evening, calling the South African team “Emirates”? Wisden called the low-key affair at Lord’s in 1999 pathetic, and 2003 was too long and boring. This time around too, the ICC has done its best to keep the proud tradition going, with its selection of artists – Bryan Adams, really? – but that is unlikely to stop Dhaka from selling out the event, from making one last cricketing connection with their beloved stadium.

Fans with World Cup tickets in Dhaka © Associated Press

My enduring memory of cricket in Bangladesh is from the last day of India’s tour in 2007. There wasn’t much left in the match: Bangladesh were sure to lose the Test by an innings. There was no if, only when. Then Mohammad Ashraful, perhaps the most frustrating cricketer to have come from the country, lifted the gloom with a counterattacking half-century. In the unforgiving heat of May, the whole stadium danced to his shots. It was joyful while it lasted. For those 46 minutes, which got Ashraful 67 runs, the crowd forgot all that had gone wrong with their cricket after a pretty successful World Cup. And then, Ashraful got out. The sigh that followed from the crowd is the loudest I have heard. And then silence. Comprehensive. These crowds make it fun to watch cricket in Bangladesh.

Four years on, I came back looking for similar passion, for similar atmosphere, for similar celebration of cricket. Naturally, huge hype was expected around the World Cup. As Shakib Al Hasan said, this is the only sport they play the World Cup of. The only World Cup they are hosting. The first time in their history when their progression to the second round, if it comes about, won’t be considered an upset.

In terms of build-up, I saw no disappointment. The first thing I saw in the country, walking out of the aircraft, was the big ICC World Cup hoarding, welcoming people to Bangladesh. However, equally noteworthy was the bottom quarter dedicated to the “commercial partners”. All of 11. I must have successfully managed to insulate myself to this aspect of the World Cup in India, because this was the first time it hit me.

The trend continues all over Dhaka. Sponsor after sponsor has queued up to gain from the World Cup. “Tigers, bring home the cup”, “Go fans, cheers for Tigers” are the kind of lines being used to sell motor bikes, soft drinks, refrigerators, everything. This is not what I was looking forward to after my experience in 2007, when an RC Cola trolley used to stroll out during drinks break. Now it is all organised, all multi-nationalised. Nothing unofficial about it.

The administrators have jumped on the bandwagon too, planting stories every other day, about how they will get rid of beggars on the streets, how they will get houses painted, how they will gives buses a facelift. Having read these ridiculous stories, having seen the overwhelming advertising drive, all I thought on my way to Mirpur was, this is not their World Cup. This has to be the people’s World Cup.

With that uneasy feeling, I made my way to the Shere Bangla Stadium for a warm-up game between Bangladesh and Pakistan, past security overwhelming in number and overbearing in nature. That, though, is something we can’t wish away: it’s the fate of those wanting to watch cricket in the subcontinent, except perhaps in Sri Lanka where the cricket still retains the laid-back touch.

The first scenes at the stadium, though, couldn’t have been more reassuring. We were already into the 18th over by the time I got accreditation and other formalities done with, and by then close to 14,000 were watching what their coach and captain had termed “not a real game”. Rooftops around the stadium were taken too, and people stayed there till late into the night. Come the “real game”, the new stylish roof over two stands in the stadium might just come down.

Today, though, it wasn’t possible: news soon trickled in that thousands were stranded outside because of problems with the ticketing process. They had bought their vouchers from banks in advance. The vouchers were to get them tickets at ticketing booths, but the sheer numbers and the alleged slowness of the ticketing process meant some of the people left and some could make their way in only past evening. It was that kind of a day in Dhaka.

More are to follow. Starting Wednesday, Eid-e-Miladunnabi, the nation is going on a five-day weekend. One of those days will be the World Cup inauguration ceremony at the iconic Bangabandhu Stadium, one will be the inaugural match, between India and Bangladesh. If you are not here this “weekend”, you might miss out on a lot.